


In the Ink

by merriman



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: M/M, Magical Art, Magical Tattoos, Students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28235088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/pseuds/merriman
Summary: Briar's tattoos are magic because he did them himself. Another magical tattoo, however, he had nothing to do with, so who did it and how?
Relationships: Briar Moss/Original Character(s), Trisana Chandler & Daja Kisubo & Briar Moss & Sandrilene fa Toren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	In the Ink

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yeswayappianway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeswayappianway/gifts).



> I hope my recipient has a very happy Yuletide and that this story hits the right notes!

It was midmorning by the time Briar actually woke. Winter meant a lot less weeding and early morning work in the gardens and his shakkans he could work on any time of day. And besides, there was a chill in the air and his bed was nice and warm, especially since he had company in it. A dull winter was the perfect time to enjoy oneself indoors.

As Briar shifted to sit up and stretch, the young man beside him stretched as well, blankets tangling around his long legs and revealing something Briar hadn't noticed the night before. Not that he hadn't spent plenty of time paying attention to Celden's body. And not that this was the first time they'd shared a bed for the night. But for some reason, Briar had never really noticed the back of Celden's right calf. 

There was something the glinted there, hidden among the lines of a tattoo that looked like a bird in flight. Briar lit the candle at his bedside table and got up to look closer. Celden mumbled and pulled a pillow over his head -- he was not one for mornings, usually spending his nights out late as a musician in one of the better inns nearby. Briar examined the tattoo closely, following a glimmer of what had to be magic. As he watched, the bird's feathers ruffled, an instant of movement that made Briar start backwards a bit, catching himself before he fumbled the candle.

"Hey, Cel. This tattoo…" 

"Which one?" Cel asked, voice muffled by the pillow. And true, he did have several. There was the bird on his calf, but also a pattern of blue and red clouds on his left shoulder, a stylized schooner on his right forearm, three lines of text in Ancient Kurchali on his right hip, and a few other small pieces. When they'd met, Cel had asked about Briar's tattoos, the vines shifting around his hands. They'd grown some up his forearms after they'd gotten back from Namorn, and now covered most of his arms. They'd got to talking, and then they'd gotten to more than talking. Now, when Cel was in town they'd meet up, have a drink, and if both of them were free, well. There they were.

"The one on your right calf. On the back."

"Oh! That one." Cel tossed the pillow away and looked back behind himself at Briar without turning over. "You like it? I don't know why I had it done back there. I can never really see it myself."

"But where did you have it done?" Briar asked, continuing to examine it. He reached out one hand and saw the vines all shift to cluster near his fingers, gathering at the tattoo. He pulled his hand back and the vines went back to their normal slow and sinuous movement. "Huh."

"Here in Summersea," Cel told him. "Maybe a year ago?"

"Mind if I have one of my sisters take a look at it? She loves birds," Briar asked as he got up to pull the curtains open and grab his breeches. "Actually, I think all three of 'em would be interested."

Cel shrugged. "Sure. Though I don't know why they would be, unless they've got a particular interest in tattoos."

"Believe me, they'll be interested. If you're not too modest?" Briar grinned at him and Cel grinned back, leering at him in such a bizarrely exaggerated manner that both of them broke into helpless laughter for a moment.

"Right, modest, me," Cel said, regaining his composure.

_Tris,_ Briar said through their bond, knowing from the feel of her that Tris was reading up on the small balcony on the roof. He didn't get an answer right away, so he tried again. _Tris, I've got something magical for you to see. Something I've never seen before._

That got her attention and without even her answering Briar knew she was coming down off the roof and into the house. He opened the door to his bedroom when he knew she was outside.

"Good morning," she told him. "You missed breakfast. Good morning Cel," she said, peering in around Briar. 

Cel gave her a little wave and finished buttoning his shirt.

"So what's this magic?" Tris asked. "It had better not just be that Cel's got nice legs, because that's not magic and we all already know that thanks to the garden incident."

"Not my fault my breeches ripped!" Cel told her. Tris flapped a hand at him in dismissal and he just smiled in response.

"No, it's this tattoo," Briar said, leading her over to the bed and motioning for Cel to turn over. Rolling up the leg of his breeches he showed Tris the tattoo of the bird. "Just look at it. There's magic in there."

"There's what?" Cel asked over his shoulder.

"Shh," Tris said. "I'm concentrating." 

She took over her spectacles and peered closely at the tattoo. Briar couldn't see the magic now, but Tris had always had a stronger sense of it than the rest of them. Seeing was part of what she did these days.

"Oh, I see," she murmured, putting her spectacles back on just as Briar caught another little glint of light. "Very interesting. I take it you didn't know?" she asked Cel, who was turning back over and sitting up.

"No, the artist never mentioned it. I'd never heard of magical tattoos before I met this one," Cel said, jerking a thumb in Briar's direction.

"Mine don't even do anything beyond move," Briar pointed out. "I'd assume someone's been able to do magic with them before. Some mages use symbols drawn out for spells. Doing it in a tattoo would be hard, but not impossible, I suppose. But what sort of spell could it be?"

Tris shrugged. "Not one I know anything about. Ask Daja, or Sandry. Their magic uses symbols and patterns more than mine does. You might even have to ask Niko. Or just go to the source and ask the artist who did it. Assuming they're still there and haven't run off after putting magic on someone without permission."

Cel groaned. "What if I'm cursed?!" he asked them. "Do you know how much it costs to break a curse?"

"A pretty penny," Tris replied. "Fortunately, you know at least four mages who can help, so stop moaning and go let Sandry and Daja have a look at you. And wash up for lunch!"

With that, she turned and left the room, likely to go back to reading. Or maybe to get lunch.

In due course, Briar had both Sandry and Daja take their turns examining the tattoo. By the time lunch was ready, both had declared that they had no idea what the spell was.

"It's not any pattern I recognize," Daja told them as she passed them the bread. "I don't even know that it is a pattern."

Sandry was lost in thought, buttering a slice of bread over and over. "I've worked with dyes and pigments before," she said at last, finally noticing the bread and setting it and her knife down on her plate. "We use them all the time to get the colors we want. But my magic isn't really with the dyes, it's with the fibers the dyes soak into. What if the magic is in the pigment itself, not a pattern? Those come from all sorts of things, plants, minerals, even insect shells. I don't know whether academic mages work like that. I've never really asked," she admitted. "Tris will learn when she goes to Lightsbridge, but that's not for another six months."

"It's like putting magic into an oil or something," Briar said, thinking about the various medicines he and Rosethorn had made over the years. "But into the ink itself. Hmm."

"I say you go look for the artist," Daja told them. "And if they're gone, you tell the Harriers or Winding Circle about it and see if they can do anything about the magic in the tattoo."

* * *

"She had this little shop," Cel was saying to Briar as they walked down to the harbor. It was a lovely day, even with the chill of winter in the air. It never got too cold in Summersea, but some winter days got damp and the cold wet air could be torture to walk around in. "She sold all sorts of pieces of art - paintings and portraits, decorations on bits of writing, and one of my friends said he'd had a tattoo done by her and it was nice work, so I thought why not?"

"If you see him again," Briar said, looking at the shops as they passed. "He may want to get that tattoo looked at by an ambient mage, or someone who can spot even tiny amounts of magic."

"Here we are," Cel said, stopping in front of a tiny shop. "Just look at those little portraits!" 

There were two framed portraits hanging on the outer wall of the shop just by the door. Briar examined them and they were indeed very lovely work. Then, just as he was moving back to go through the door he spotted the barest hint of magic in the swirl of paint that formed one figure's hair.

"Oh, hello!" said a voice just inside the shop. "Bird of paradise, last year, yes?" she asked.

"Right!" Cel said. 

"Is there a problem? Color fading or bleeding?" she asked.

Briar ducked inside to see a woman a little older than himself seated at an easel, turned to face Cel. She was short, perched on a stool in front of the easel, and had her dark hair cropped shorter than Briar's own. She wore breeches and a long tunic with an apron on over it, covered in various colored smears and blotches. The shop had a counter along the back wall that had a number of containers on it, full of brightly colored pigments. Another wall had several pieces of art hung on it along with sketches of various tattoos. 

Cel had been about to answer when the woman hopped off her stool and walked over to Briar.

"May I?" she asked, pointing to his hands. Briar held them out for her to see. She turned them over gently, poking at one of the vines and watching as it coiled where her finger touched, then bloomed in bright blue. "Magnificent!" she said, looking at Briar. "Wherever did you get it done?"

"I did it myself," he told her as she continued to follow the vines up his wrists and forearms. "I used vegetable dyes, but I'm a green mage and, well, you see the results."

She laughed and let go of his hands, stepping back. "Now, if you did this yourself, you can't be looking for my work," she told him. "Finella Daloran, artist, at your service."

As she introduced herself, Briar looked past her to the piece on the easel she'd been working on, and saw a tiny bit of magic in the still-wet paint.

"Ah. Well. It seems that perhaps your work is a little more interesting than other tattoos I've seen," Briar said. "You wouldn't happen to know how magic might have gotten in there, would you?"

Finella stared at him. "Magic? In the tattoo?"

"In the ink," Briar told her. "You mix your own, don't you?"

"I do…" Finella looked over at her workbench. Briar went to it and picked up one of the jars, opening it to look inside. Looking now, at the concentrated pigment, he could see the magic sparking as the powder shifted in the jar.

"Miss Daloran," Briar said. "I think perhaps you and I need to have a long talk about magic."

"What about me?" Cel asked, still standing at the door. "I'm the one with the magic tattoo!"

"It's only a sneeze-worth of magic," Briar assured him. "We'll have Finella here take it out up at Winding Circle, once she learns how to control what she's got."

Finella was looking at her paints and pigments, then at Cel and Briar. "I suppose it would explain some things," she said finally. "Ma always told me she couldn't believe I'd make a living off my art, but here I am. Winding Circle, hmm? I suppose I'd better close up the shop for the day."

Briar nodded. "I'm Briar Moss," he said, taking his medallion out from under his shirt. "And it seems I just got a whole lot more busy for the winter."

_Found her!_ he called through his bond with Sandry, Tris, and Daja. _Some sort of art mage. The magic is in her paints and dyes. Sandry, I'll bet you'd love to meet her!_

_Once she's found her footing!_ Sandry called back. _Good luck with your new student!_ she teased.

Cel sighed from behind Briar and Briar turned to him. "I suppose you're going to be too busy for me," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. 

"Of course not," Briar assured him, planting a small kiss on his lips. "I'm very good at paying attention to more than one thing at a time. Come on, you can come with us to show off Finella's handiwork."

Finella was quickly rinsing brushes and putting things away, draping a cloth over the easel.

"Come on, you two," she scolded. "You've just told me I can do magic. Save your canoodling for the bedroom."

Briar laughed. This was going to be a challenge, but then, what student wasn't?

"Let's go," he told them both. "If we hurry, we can probably grab a meal from Dedicate Gorse after we talk to my teachers. Now there's something to be single-minded about."

As they left the shop, Cel's arm wrapped around his waist and Finella all but leading the way out of the city, Briar laughed. And here he'd thought his winter was going to be dull.


End file.
